From The Start
by guiltyformysins
Summary: The four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a safe haven for those persecuted and young wizards and witches to learn their craft. An impossible love between a cruel Salazar and kind, sweet Helga forms within these walls.
1. Chapter 1

If she was the sun then he was the moon, unable to gaze upon her but still glowing from her light.

If she was a rose in full bloom he was a weed growing in her garden, though he could do nothing to deflect from her beauty.

To his bitterness she was sweet. To his impatience she was kind. To his selfishness she was generous and forgiving.

For how long would he be forced to harbor these secrets affections for sweet Helga? How could someone so full of light feel anything but contempt for him?

Godric, with his pompous attitude always strutting around the place. Rowena and her books and lessons, only thinking of her knowledge and daughter.

But sweet Helga, her plump round face, her strawberry lips and hazel eyes. How he would long to bask in the glow of her skin, to take in the sight of her, the feel her in every way possible.

He'd grown darker in the pasts months, withdrawing to himself and impatient with his students. He hardly ate and was particularly cruel to those around him, to Helga, with her kind attempts to bring him out more.

It was her foolish ideals that brought them apart, he had tried to reason with her so many times, that a pure bloodline would ensure only the best young wizards and witches. That with pureblood came loyalty and allegiance to their own kind. That one day, when their numbers were greater, they would no longer be forced as outcasts from the world. How humiliating it was to him to hide from the muggles, their fear of magic and ignorance made him angry.

But she was too naive for it, she didn't care about blood. She didn't want a race of pureblood, she wanted to protect those of her own kind no matter what their heritage. She believed they could all exist, wizards and witches with their muggle counterparts, existing in separate worlds. But why should they bend to such an inferior race?

He had grown sick of arguing. If they wouldn't listen to him he would have to take matters into his own hands. It was haunting him day and night. If they caught him he'd be killed for it, and why shouldn't they kill him? They didn't see the beauty in his plan, they would see it as murder and nothing else. They didn't see that he was trying to help them, none of them saw it.

It drove him on through the nights, working on more powerful spells to keep others out. No, no one could know, not until he was ready, not until he was sure it would not fail.

Salazar worked in his office in the Slytherin tower, he worked alone and aided only by candle light as he poured over books with any reference to the great beast he needed to guard his chamber. It was then that her small round face poked through the door and he sighed angrily, closing his book and placing some parchment over it to hide. "What is it, Helga?" His voice was too harsh, too harsh for the glow he felt inside of him when he saw her.

"I'm worried about you, Salazar. You haven't been around and the students have been complaining-"

"Which students? What are they saying? They should know better than to-"

"Please, Salazar, calm down. They haven't said anything that should make you so angry, only that you've been very distracted lately. I only speak to you for their sake, to make sure you aren't in some distress," she said, her hazel eyes holding his gaze.

Salazar leaned into his chair and sighed, running his hand over his face and through his now coarse beard. "No, nothing distress's me. Only the anger of seeing students come from filthy muggle homes, who've never practiced magic in their life. Whose parents would hunt our kind and kill us, and yet we take them in."

"Don't you see? We need to take them in, to save them, where else would they go? Who else would they turn to?" Helga said, pleading with him, she was the only one who bothered to anymore.

"That's not the point, Helga! We can't have that kind of, of- filth! Filth in our school, with no allegiance to any of us, who would have hunted us had they not exposed their magic earlier," he said, his voice echoing the rage inside of him.

She shook her head sadly, almost in a way that look disappointed. "You are wrong, wrong because they wouldn't do that. They have come here and seen the truth, they know the truth about themselves and accept it. We did that for them, helped them to realize who they are. Who we are. You were once a man who believed in what this school stood for, and now I hardly recognize you at all."

"I haven't changed, it's you all who have forgotten what they did to us! To you! You have more right than any of us to be angry with the muggles, Helga, or have you forgotten your sister?"

"Stop it, Salazar. Stop it now," Helga said firmly.

"I was there, I saw what they did to her, what your own town did to her, and he would have done to you if I hadn't-"

"I said stop, Salazar. I am not a student that you can torture. Do you think I don't remember that night? But I do not let the past haunt me, and I do not punish children for those mistakes." Helga said, her posture shifted, like she was torn between standing there or running for the door. He didn't give her the chance, moving from behind his desk and getting closer to her.

"You say you remember it, then how can you protect these muggle children? They would have grown into the same people that cheered while your sister burned!" Salazar said raising his voice, nearly yelling.

They were frozen between each other, his sweet Helga red in the cheeks from her own anger and the sadness in her lovely eyes that he had put there. The sadness that he wanted to erase with a sweet, soft kiss. The sadness he wanted to forget, to take back his words and see her again with the kindness in her heart for him. "That is what divides you and I, I do not punish others for past mistakes. I believe in changing the world, to protect our kind so that nothing so awful would ever happen again. For you to use that against me to prove a point, well, it makes you just as despicable as them."

Salazar felt his own heart pulse, his usual cold eyes focussed in on hers, glimmering and ready to spill tears. How sweet she was, glowing because of the size of her heart ready to burst at any moment with love of those around her. But what did she see when she looked at him? A cold man, incapable of forgiveness or compassion. But that was not the truth, not the true him, not the man he could have been for her in another time perhaps. A man that would not have been so selfish, so arrogant or so cruel.

"Helga, I-" His hand had risen from his body and his fingers curled against the curve of her flush cheek, skin so soft under his own rough fingers.

She raised her own hand and pushed his arm away, "Do not touch me, Salazar, not ever again!"

He lowered his arm, afraid to break the gaze from her. "I'm not like them Helga, I'm sorry."

Helga blinked, and through her glistening eyes he could see a reflection of himself. He could see what she saw, a man full of regret longing for another chance. Did she feel it then too? Feel the need to have their skin in touch and feel the quickening of each other's pulse.

Before he could know for sure she turned away from him and left the room, he saw her wipe at her cheek. The room felt so bare and empty without her in it, her sweet smell and honey hair gone and only the stale oder of books and candle wax left of the room left. Salazar yelled in frustration, knocking the paper off his desk and the candles burning out. He was in the dark as smoke curled in the air, the light of the moon shining through the office. The sun was gone, only her pale reflection to reveal his true self in it.


	2. Chapter 2

Hogwarts had grown to be nearly unbearable in the past days since their confrontation in his office. Helga avoided any eye contact with him, even when he attempted to please her by coming out for dinner in the great hall and yelling less at his students. Even Godric steered away from him now, knowing another argument wouldn't be best with Salazar when there was already so much troubling him. Everyone knew the shame that came with upsetting Helga, it pulled everyone from their own world long enough to make things right. No one liked to upset her, for it took a lot to do so and always meant you were in the wrong.

Helga was out in the garden that afternoon, she loved to tend to her flowers and there were a few of her students nearly always in there with her. Salazar found herbology to be a waste of time, but she swore by it and it would only upset her if he mentioned it again.

He approached from the castle and marveled at the way her body soaked in the light of the sun, like it was storing it away for later. Was that how she always seemed to glow to him? Her head turned as she heard his footsteps grow closer and she patted some of the soil down and brushed the dirt off her hands before turning away from him and walking away.

"Helga, wait!" Salazar said, quickening his pace after her, grabbing her arm and turning her to look at him. "Won't you at least look at me while I make my apology?" he asked, with a meager smile.

"I do not want your apology, I want nothing more than to be left alone by you. Haven't you grown bored with your games with me yet? I do not wish to amuse you any longer, do not try to apologize to me again if you do not intend to honour those words," she said, and he was almost certain she had never meant anything so much. That was the thing about Helga, at times she could appear so fragile and implore every urger within him to protect her. And then there were moments like now, where he knew that it was all very much untrue, that she was not frail or weak but a strong woman who wouldn't put up with him for much longer

Salazar looked and saw the brightness of her hair, he raised his hand and brushed her hair back, he couldn't resist the moment and she did not pull away from his touch. "I am sorry Helga, for what I said to you last night. You did not deserve that."

Helga placed her hand gently over his, his palm cupped against her cheek and she closed her eyes for a moment, when she opened them again she was looking at him. He leaned forward, wanting so badly to place his lips against hers, to feel her respond with the passion he held for her. Helga was a salve on his aching heart and the only light he saw, how he would have loved to feel her respond the same. But she moved away, letting go of his hand and stepping back.

Her cheeks blushed and she turned, picking the hem of her skirt off the ground and marching back towards the castle.

"Am I forgiven?" Salazar called out.

"Once I think of your punishment you will be!" she called back, and for the first time in weeks he smiled brightly.


End file.
